4th gen crypto needs collaborative tokenomics against tech giants

4th gen crypto needs collaborative tokenomics against tech giants — Hoskinson

The next generation of cryptocurrency projects must embrace a more collaborative approach to compete with major centralized tech companies entering the Web3 space, according to Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson.

Speaking at Paris Blockchain Week 2025, Hoskinson said one of the main criticisms of the crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) space is its “circular economy,” which often means that the rally of a specific cryptocurrency is bolstered by funds exiting another token, limiting the growth of the industry.

Hoskinsin said that to have a chance against the centralized technology giants joining the Web3 industry, cryptocurrency projects need more collaborative tokenomics and market structure.

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Charles Hoskinson. Source: Cointelegraph

“The problem right now, with the way we’ve done things in the cryptocurrency space, is the tokenomics and the market structure are intrinsically adversarial. It’s sum 0,” said Hoskinson. “Instead of picking a fight, what you have to do is you have to find tokenomics and market structure that allows you to be in a cooperative equilibrium.”

He argued that the current environment often sees one crypto project’s growth come at the expense of another rather than contributing to the sector’s overall health. He added that this is not sustainable in the face of trillion-dollar firms like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, which may soon join the Web3 race amid clearer US regulations.

“You can’t build a global ecosystem this way, and you can’t win this way,” he said. “Because here’s the thing. The incumbents are much larger.”

Hoskinson’s comments came as the industry awaits progress on US stablecoin legislation, which may come in the next two months.

A secondary bill, the GENIUS Act — an acronym for Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins — would establish collateralization guidelines for stablecoin issuers while requiring full compliance with Anti-Money Laundering laws.

Crypto faces Big Tech’s regulatory tailwind

More participation from tech giants is likely after the stablecoin bill is passed. The markets structure bill may pass by September, Hoskinson said, adding:

“These are the barriers that, once removed, mean that Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple and others enter the cryptocurrency space and tell me who owns their platforms. They do. That’s three billion users.”

“So if those barriers are removed, how do we, as an industry, compete against the wallet that Apple built in bundles with the iPhone,” he said, adding that crypto also needs to build infrastructure that the incoming tech giants can leverage.

Aiming to align blockchain network incentives, Cardano has been working on “Minotaur,” a multi-resource consensus protocol that combines multiple consensus mechanisms and networks to pay a unified block reward to multiple networks at the same time.

“You pay in the currency you want, and multiple networks are involved in securing the system and have a financial incentive to keep the system around,” Hoskinson said.